LITMIR.BIZ

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he tried to tell himself. He thought of the work he’d done. Four years building friendships. Building trust. He’d worked with those people, partied with them, attended the baptisms of their children and the marriages of the their daughters.

      His work had culminated in twenty-three arrests in four different countries. Bad guys, yes, but also people he had come to know on a different level: sons, husbands, fathers.

      His own father probably knew the truth about him after all—Brand Sheridan’s heart was as black as the ace of spades.

      Early the next morning, Brand was working in his father’s backyard, trying to clear the shambles his mother’s rosebeds had become.

      Nobody had to know that this is how he would honor her. Bring back something she had loved that now looked sorry and neglected. Who knew? Maybe with enough work it could be ready for next year’s garden tour.

      He was just blotting an angry, bleeding welt from a thorn when he got that hair-rising-on-the-back-of-his-neck feeling.

      He turned slightly. The red hat was highly visible through the hedge. He smiled to himself. He was being watched.

      “You must come see,” Hilde called in German. “He’s taken off his shirt.”

      He had taken off his shirt, even though the morning was cool, because the thorns were ripping it to tatters.

      “Grandma!”

      But out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sophie could not resist the temptation and had joined her grandmother at the hedge

      He flexed a muscle for them, tried not to smile at the grandma’s gasp of appreciation, pretended he had no idea they were there.

      “He’s bleeding,” Hilde whispered, still in German. “You should bring him a Band-Aid.”

      “Stop it,” Sophie said.

      “Go over there,” her grandma hissed.

      “No.”

      “Ach. You have no idea how to conduct a romance.”

      “I do so. I was nearly married.”

      “Ha. Being flattered that someone pays attention to you is not the same as being romanced.”

      Brand knew it. Sophie hadn’t been in love. She hadn’t even been infatuated. She’d been flattered.

      He picked up his shirt, wiped the sweat off with it, wandered over to the hedge, peered through it as if he was surprised to see them there.

      “Hey, ladies, nice morning.”

      “Oh, Brand,” Sophie said, and squeezed through the little gap in the hedge where she had made her escape the other night.

      Or, from the annoyed glance back at the bobbing red hat, maybe she’d been pushed through it.

      She was dressed for work. She looked as if she worked at a library, but he thought it was probably safe to assume the Historical Society would provide the same dusty-tomes atmosphere.

      Her remarkable auburn hair had been pinned up, she was wearing a white shirt with a fine navy pinstripe, a stern, straight-line navy blue skirt and flat shoes.

      She had her glasses on, making her reminiscent of the national-speech-contest girl she had once been.

      Only now there was a twist.

      Sophie was all grown up, and he was stunned to discover he harbored a librarian fantasy. It made his mouth go dry thinking of slipping those glasses off her face, pulling the pins from her hair, flicking open the top button of that primly fastened-to-the-throat blouse.

      She intensified his commitment to the fantasy when she stared at him as if she was a sheltered little librarian, who had never seen a half-naked man before. She gulped, looked wildly back at the little hole in the hedge.

      She brought out the sinner in him, because he was wickedly delighted in her discomfort. He folded his arms over his chest.

      “You’re bleeding,” her grandmother coached, through the hedge, in German.

      “You’re, uh, very tanned,” Sophie blurted out uncomfortably.

      “I lived on a yacht in Spain.”

      “That was your undercover job?”

      “Yes.”

      So many things she could have said: Was it glamorous? What’s Spain like? Why a yacht? What was it like to live there? Were you pretending to be rich and famous? What did you do every day? Who were you trying to catch?

      But she asked none of those.

      She said, her eyes suddenly quiet on his face, “Were you afraid?”

      Until this very moment, he hadn’t thought so. But now, standing here in the quiet of the garden with her, the birds singing riotously in the trees, the odd bee buzzing by, he felt the complete absence of fear. And he felt a different kind of tension from the kind he had learned to live with, day in and day out, for four long years.

      A delightful tension. A man aware of a woman. A woman aware of a man.

      “I guess I was afraid,” he admitted slowly. He wondered if he had ever said those words to another human being. It felt as though a vital piece of his armor fell away from him.

      Not It must have been exciting. “It must have been unbelievably difficult.”

      He scrambled for the piece of fallen armor, grinned at her, flexed a muscle and was satisfied when her little tongue flicked out and gave the corner of her lip a nervous lick.

      “Nah,” he said, “just a job.”

      But despite the distraction, her eyes on his face were still quiet, knowing.

      He hated that. “What happened to your engagement?” he asked, moving her away from the topic of him.

      He hoped she wasn’t going to tell him something that would make him have to hunt down her ex and have a little talk with him.

      Sophie looked wildly uncomfortable.

      “I should know,” he encouraged her. “As your new beau, I should know why the last guy was dumb enough to ditch you.”

      “He didn’t ditch me,” she squeaked. “I told him I needed some time to think. While I was thinking, he was hunting. For my replacement.”

      Something in Brand whispered softly and entirely against his will, as if you could replace a girl like her! “What did you need to think about?”

      Her eyes fastened on his naked bicep, he flexed it for her. She licked her lips.

      “I don’t know, exactly. Something was missing.”

      “Well, then you’re a smart girl for calling it off.”

      “Do you really think so?”

      “Really.” Even he was surprised by how much he meant that. “You know, your parents were good, good people. They really loved each other, Sophie. Maybe you felt desperate to have what you had lost.”

      She looked stunned. He was a little shocked himself. Where had that observation come from?

      “Ah, well,” she said, looking away, finally, “I’m just on my way to work, but I thought I should let you know I’ve formalized the plan.”

      She looked faintly relieved that there were actually neat papers in her hand, an escape from the intensity of the moment and the understanding that had just passed between them.

      “I was just going to drop them in the mailbox, but since you’re here—

      Deliciously flustered, she thrust several sheets of neatly folded paper at him and ducked back through the hedge.

      “You didn’t say he was bleeding,” her grandmother scolded

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